Why I was wrong about ideological groups

[barkayb]

Every now and then we see Stefan talking about how he was wrong about [insert ideology here].

 

What I propose is that Stefan is not really venting about followers of the ideology in particular, but rather, followers of a strategy of choosing an ideology. It's the same category of people that get the intervention.

 

Most of these popular ideologies begin with a good idea, that is not so easy to consume at the time and goes against popular opinion.

 

At that early stage, it is very intriguing for people of cognitive depth who can understand the argument and see the truth in it, but very hard to consume for people who lack in that regard. So at that point the tiny ideology group is made up of very philosophical, high-confidence, rational people who are unable to contradict the new truth that they have discovered and will sacrifice for moral consistency without being backed by anyone, with no movement to follow or to get support from, or socialize with...

 

As the group grows, it slowly becomes more accepted (or less rejected) and its idea becomes lighter to consume because there are more people who explain it and convince others to join in.

 

Each layer of "recruits" depends on the previous and enables the next layer, and comes with an increasingly higher rate of people who aren't joining in for the truth and consistency of the ideology, but rather, for example, for reasons of appearance, association, novelty, originality, and other such fallacious appeals. Eventually the same people who we didn't like in the other groups, who behave aggressively and irrationally, carry the new label, and they become the majority of the group.

 

For instance, these same religious people who were aggressively imposing their religion on others are now doing the same thing while calling themselves atheists, distributing invalid arguments for atheism and picking on believers. They saw religiosity "losing" to atheism so they switched.

 

For each person that I like, I'd like them just the same if they happen to be religious or atheist or socialist or libertarian... And for each person that I dislike, I wouldn't like them more if they change their minds -- they'll be just as irrational and aggressive and unempathetic no matter what they associate themselves with.

 

Any popular or "winning" group is going to get filled up with the same group of switchers, and will become largely irrational and aggressive.

 

What do you think?

[dsayers]

Most of these popular ideologies begin with a good idea, that is not so easy to consume at the time and goes against popular opinion.

 

At that early stage, it is very intriguing for people of cognitive depth who can understand the argument and see the truth in it

I'm not sure what's being talked about here. Aren't ideologies just another form of culture, which is incompatible with philosophy? If one can see the truth in something, isn't it reality that's being discussed, not an ideology?

[Wuzzums]

I agree.

There are leaders and there are followers. Leaders pave the road ahead and followers one by one start walking on it because it's nice, or cool, or it's what smart people do, or it gives them the moral high ground, or maybe they're just swept away with other followers, and so on.

The more people accumulate the more people gather behind the follower giving him a sense of leading the heard.

When the original leader takes a turn the follower cannot judge for himself thus he continues in the same direction lest he lose the other followers behind him. Kinda like inertia, if he goes the same way he's assured to remain in front of the pack because he knows the followers will do the same. He can indulge in the fantasy that he's a leader a while longer.

However, the follower not being a leader cannot build any road thus it's only a matter of time until he loses his way. Same goes for the others. The ones ahead might create a faint path in the dirt for the other to follow but it's only a matter of time until they stray off and disperse in all directions until they come across another road and the whole process repeats once again.

 

I still remember the drastic spike in atheism after a study linked atheism with higher intelligence. Their train of thought is basically: "X is sexy. X is wearing a shirt. I am wearing the exact same shirt. I am as sexy as X."

 

Also who's Stephan?

[barkayb]

I agree with the leader/follower perspective that you've presented, except for one part:

 

I claim that at each growth iteration, the new follower "leaders" actually ambiguate/divert the original direction of the group, to satisfy the collective fantasy, which makes it easier for a new mind category to join in, and that in turn shifts the collective fantasy to become less and less rational, in a cyclic fashion.

 

So in my claim, they don't strictly adhere to the original front, they actually move that front away from the original with every step, while using the same label.

 

If someone tells me that they are Feminist today, I dont know what they believe: maybe they just want no gender references in the law? But likely, they believe that women should get as much money as men do while working less. Because that group is bigger and uses the same name (despite the significant differences in their ideas of promoting women)

 

We now see a rise in popularity toward Libertarianism. Whole groups of people who have nothing to do with voluntaryism who took upon hating the state. It's very interesting to see where this will go.

 

Also who's Stephan?

An exact clone of Stefan Molyneux, goes by a different name though. Born out of a late-night brain fart

Thanks for the correction.

[rosencrantz]

Most of these popular ideologies begin with a good idea, that is not so easy to consume at the time and goes against popular opinion.

 

That's where the problem starts. There are two sorts of people, roughly. Those who have one big idea and who apply to everything. This approach is misled by confirmation bias, double think and what have you. The other group of people don't have a big idea and they come up with different explanations for different phenomena.

[Wuzzums]

I claim that at each growth iteration, the new follower "leaders" actually ambiguate/divert the original direction of the group, to satisfy the collective fantasy, which makes it easier for a new mind category to join in, and that in turn shifts the collective fantasy to become less and less rational, in a cyclic fashion.

 

So in my claim, they don't strictly adhere to the original front, they actually move that front away from the original with every step, while using the same label.

 

Yes. I once wondered why this always happened and then found out about cultural marxism. There are several stages to pass through in order to achieve a communist utopia one of which is capitalism. What socialists/communists didn't expect is that people don't want to move beyond capitalism. They believed a capitalist society will inevitably collapse by itself after which people will freely accept communism as the solution. They waited, and waited, and waited, and capitalism still didn't collapse. So they decided to give it a helping hand.

 

You know a movement has been infiltrated by the upsurge of conflict within its followers. Feminism, a movement for both men and women now the major cause of conflict between the two. Unions, atheism, conservatism, libertarianism, civil rights, and so on. Divide and conquer.

 

They cleverly achieve this with the use of ambiguity. This youtuber called Victor Zen had a great analogy for this. Let's say you want to kill babies but killing babies is frowned upon by society. So you create/join this movement called the nutritionist movement. Within this movement you continue to kill as many babies as you want and when someone points out that's wrong and you should stop it all you have to say is: "Hey! Are you saying you're AGAINST NUTRITION?? What's wrong with you?! Hey, everyone! This guy is against nutrition, GET HIM!"

What do feminists say when you attack their actions? = You're against women's rights !!

What do democrats say when you attack welfare? = You're against civil rights !!

What do atheists say when you attack their nihilism? = You're against science !!

What do libertarians say when you attack their passivity? = You're a fascist !!

What do conservatives say when you attack their snobbery? = You're rude !!

 

This is why I always have to remind myself to judge people by what they do and not what they say. Once you spot a cultural marxist by his verbiage it's already too late.

[barkayb]

I think what bothers me is just that. The way that they hijack the terms. It makes it dangerous to use these terms to present yourself.

 

I used to say that I was an atheist until I discovered it comes with more meaning than just non theistic. So now I present myself as secular, maybe at my own peril because I can't know what that means or what meaning it will carry in the future.

 

To illustrate the distinction, if we versioned the ideas or postfixed them to disambiguate differences between each group that joins in, then for example, I would likely have no problem with people who took on Libertarianism 1-3, Communism 1-3, Atheism 1-3, etc.. But I would have a problem with the people who take on Libertarianism 4+, Communism 4+, Atheism 4+, Feminism 4+... Assuming that these have mostly lost any philosophical relation with the original idea.

 

Here in Israel we used to have a lot of communities called Kibbutzim (many Kibbutz), some of these still exist today. A Kibbutz is basically a communist group that exists within the free market, in a voluntary fashion (you can join or leave). A Kibbutz offers some social benefits for members such as housing, food and the like, and will keep caring for them when they're older. A Kibbutz finances itself, by the works of its members, like a company does.

 

I don't have a problem with this type of communists. They're great. Some people like this lifestyle and they don't live at anyone's expense but their own.

 

(That is just to show that even communism might not be at its essence what we get served with, and that when reasonable people do it, it's not bad at all.)